And the most influential games of all time according to BAFTA ...

https://www.ign.com/articles/bafta-announces-the-most-influential-video-game-of-all-time-and-its-a-real-head-scratcher

BAFTA — the UK's independent arts charity celebrating excellence in film, games, and TV — has just revealed the most influential video game of all time... and it's probably not what you think it is.

BAFTA polled the British public to discover that while games like GTA, Tetris, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, Doom, and Half-Life 2 do make the list, the top as ranked by the number of votes received is Shenmue.

Action-adventure game Shenmue released in 1999 on Dreamcast. It follows Ryo Hazuki's quest to avenge his father's death in what BAFTA calls "a detailed open-world setting that truly captures the essence of Yokosuka in the ‘80s."

List:

1. Shenmue (1999)
2. Doom (1993)
3. Super Mario Bros. (1985)
4. Half-Life (1998)
5. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
6. Minecraft (2011)
7. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (2025)
8. Super Mario 64 (1996)
9. Half-Life 2 (2004)
10. The Sims (2000)
11. Tetris (1984)
12. Tomb Raider (1996)
13. Pong (1972)
14. Metal Gear Solid (1998)
15. World of Warcraft (2004)
16. Baldur's Gate 3 (2023)
17. Final Fantasy VII (1997)
18. Dark Souls (2011)
19. Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
20. Skyrim (2011)
21. Grand Theft Auto (1997)

Shenmue is number 1 lol.. Do you agree with that, SW? It is highly influential for sure, but number 1?. not sure about that one.

April fools list fur chur!! lol :P

I agree with Shenmue being on the list, not sure about number 1. It pioneered so many things from open world activities, world interactivity, investigations, procedural generation. We see so many elements of that game in games today. No other game at the time allowed that level of freedom at the time.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 should not be on that list though, way too early for that.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has zero place on that list. The game is like a month old.

lol. In what world? Most people haven't even heard about it.

Stupid ass list.

Should Shenmue be on the list? YES

Should it be number 1? I'm not really sure.....

Semi open world design, NPC's and stores having schedules, freedom to play mini games and go off track are all great! Not saying Shenmue did all of that well, but it did do it first.

Have you seen any sailors?

@Star67:

Lol and agreed, should be on the list for sure but probably not #1 since I have more trouble with all the others that shouldn't have been on the list at all. :P

Feel like Resident Evil should be on that list. Probably both 1 and 4 even.

Pretty funny list.

Number 7 is way too suspicious lmao. Since its public voting idk the british either have poor taste, recency bias or just trolling.

Very based picking sims 1 over 2 or 3. Sims 1 is my fav sims game of all time so with so much bias I vouch for its placement.

Solid list.

This list is mostly good, just a couple questionable choices. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is the only one that doesn't belong, maybe replace it with an Ultima or something. BG3 is an okay choice, but 1 or 2 would be better. GTA 3 and Shenmu should switch places. Otherwise solid picks.

Has to be April fools....

Saw this list yesterday.

On the one hand, I'm happy for Shenmue to finally get some recognition for once. It revolutionized open world and AAA game design. You can still see traces of its game design all across open world and AAA games to this day. Number one is pushing it, but Shenmue certainly deserves to be on the list.

On the other hand, the list as a whole suffers from recency bias. Games made in the last 10-20 years are vastly over-represented and games prior to that are vastly under-represented. Where are the likes of Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Street Fighter or Resident Evil? Most of the voters must be Gen Z and younger Millennials.

Doom, Halflife, Grand Theft Auto 3, Metal Gear Solid from just skimming that are all more influential than Shenmue.

These lists are pretty much always garbage so it's whatever.

My picks for most influential video games of each decade:

1970s

• Arcade – Space Invaders (Taito)
• Console – Table Tennis (Magnavox Odyssey)
• Computer – Adventure (PDP-10)

1980s

• Arcade – Pac-Man (Namco)
• Console – Super Mario Bros. (NES)
• Computer – Wizardry (Apple II)
• Handheld – Tetris (Game Boy)

1990s

• Arcade – Street Fighter II (Capcom CPS)
• Console – Super Mario 64 (N64)
• Computer – Doom (DOS)
• Handheld – Pokémon Red (Game Boy)
• Mobile – Snake (Nokia 6110)

2000s

• Arcade – World Club Champion Football (Sega NAOMI 2)
• Console – Grand Theft Auto III (PS2)
• Computer – Half-Life 2 (Steam)
• Handheld – Nintendogs (DS)
• Mobile – Angry Birds (iOS)

2010s

• Arcade – Gunslinger Stratos (Taito Type X³)
• Console – Dark Souls (PS3, X360)
• Computer – PUBG (Steam)
• Handheld – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
• Mobile – Puzzle & Dragons (iOS)

2020s

• Arcade – Far Cry VR (Zero Latency VR)
• Console – Elden Ring (PS4, PS5, XB1, XBS)
• Computer – Black Myth: Wukong (PC)
• Handheld – Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch)
• Mobile – Genshin Impact (Android, iOS)

Holy hell! Street Fighter II not on that list. 🤣😂🤦‍♂️

Hmm, I wonder why Halo: Combat Evolve isn't on the list? I totally get that both HL games deserves to be their but Halo: CE had a big impact on the most influential games out their.

@davillain: How many FPS they need on there? Already Doom, Half Life, and Half Life 2

I would probably add Quake and Metroid Prime before Halo.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2? wtf? And BG3? These games are way too young to have had ANY influence. They have been influenced, but how did they have any influence? These are either industry plants or just someone is on crack.

I agree with IGN the list is a headscratcher. Maniac Mansion is missing. Wizardry is missing. Street Fighter 2 is missing. Rogue is missing.

Sega wins again.

How in the hell can Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 be in there? It just came out. 🤣😂🤦‍♂️

I can see an argument that BG3 defied the odds and upset the industry by being higher quality than what other AAA devs could do without the microtransactions, yada yada.

Still, I'd pick BG1 over BG3 for influence, and I don't think either would make my list compared to something like Ultima (about a quarter of that list can trace their roots directly back to Ultima).

Skyrim doesn't belong there either, tbh. I don't think it was any more influential than Oblivion, which deserves a spot for its horse armour DLC alone.

@girlusocrazy: Just that I'm seeing recent games like KCD2 & BG3 are just too early if you ask me. I would take both of those out and feel the spot for Halo CE. Sure, that's a lot of FPS but Halo CE was truly special in 2001.

Where’s Diablo on that list? Not only did it spawn a genre, the loot system expanded beyond the genre as well. I believe Baldur’s Gate was made real time with pause due to Diablo’s popularity too; was definitely the case with Divine Divinity (I recall Larian’s CEO said it was originally going to be turn based).

KCD is... 1 month old.

And it seems to be more of a favorites than anything else.

Games like Clash of Clans (as much as I hate it), Rogue, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, PUBG, WarCraft 3 are considerably more deserving than some games on there.

Yeah so many early 3d rasterization techniques practically began with ultima underworld, at least in how to apply them to a video game.

Pixar, is and will always be the GOAT.

@Archangel3371: Haha just noticed Ridiculous.

This is why you shouldn't ask the public what is the most "influential" game... Most of the time, they're just going to vote their favourite game, even if it just came out yesterday and didn't influence anything.